Town Square

LAFCo: Build Stoneridge or lose Staples Ranch

LAFCo, the Alameda County Local Agency Formation Commission that has the final say on annexations, has warned Pleasanton that it may not approve the city's planned annexation of the 126-acre Staples Ranch.

Posted by Robert I
a resident of Stoneridge
on Sep 12, 2008 at 3:09 pm

Joe Bing- does this guy have any original thouhgts on anything. Every editorial this guy writes always ,I repeat always supports what the Chamber of Commerce is in favor of. You can always predict what or who he is going to support in his one sided editoials-he always suppots what and who the Chamber of Commerce supports.This so called paper gets the majority of its add revenues from the local realtors and the Chamber,so guess it's no hard to predict who Bing and the paper support.I would say 98% of the time you know in advance who the paper supports.Wouldn't it be niece to have a local paper that was independant in its editorials and thoughts and not a stooge for the local Chamber and realtors.The Chamber supports the extension so of course lazy Joe suppots it also-he is so predictable.

Posted by iwastheretoo
a resident of Amador Estates
on Sep 12, 2008 at 5:14 pm

This is great...our Mayor gets kicked off the board while working on personal business...if she wants to be a lawyer great...but don't do it at the expense of the citizens of Pleasanton. Now, we have no representation...and this is a Mayor who has the best interests of the citizens of Pleasanton as her primary goal...bring back Pico...(the Pico before he began working for developers)...

Posted by MainStreetDiva
a resident of Vintage Hills Elementary School
on Sep 12, 2008 at 5:58 pm

Total agreement with iwastheretoo. I just love the fact that our mayor, who should be representing our city, was too busy with her own personal career to attend these meetings, and subsequently got kicked off of the board, leaving our city with no representation.

Yet another reason I will not vote for her again. The list is pretty long already.

Posted by MainStreetDiva
a resident of Vintage Hills Elementary School
on Sep 12, 2008 at 7:28 pm

I just read the PRINT version of this editorial, and am disgusted with the trend of bias I am seeing in the Pleasanton Weekly:

1. The print version of this editorial, on page 12 of this week's edition, has been severely edited due to space (this I know something about, as a former technical editor). However, the comments about Hosterman being booted from the board due to having missed numerous meetings, was deleted. This is not editing for space, it's spin! Of all the statements to cut! These statements were obviously cut to avoid presenting Ms. Mayor in a bad light.

2. On page 13, the placement of the letters is questionable. Notice that the top letter, given more prominence being placed at the top of the page, raised the questions Brozosky's emails (which is a closed issue). Steve's clarification letter was given short shrift by being placed at the bottom of the page. Subtle, but still spin.

I sense a letter to the editor here...Would love to hear justification/rationalizations from both Jeb Bing and Gina Cahnnell-Allen on this case of bias.

I am pretty certain Jeb Bing operates well within his First Amendment rights.

Our Mayor takes heat for wanting to engage in national issues, while the good-angry people of Pleasanton want to practice censorship and ignore The Bill of Rights when it comes to Bing and The Weekly? Not sure I like where that would take us...

As for the extension? It was on the plans and in the works when I moved here in 1967. So it's not a Chamber thing, or a Weekly thing, it's a planning thing, and it's been part of the plan since the 60's...

That's why I refer to it as "the extension." West Las Positas...Las Positas Golf Course... Get it? Because houses were built in Pleasanton Meadows on WLP, they crossed the two streets in Hacienda and driveway-free Stoneridge became "the extension."

Posted by FactChecker
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Sep 12, 2008 at 11:34 pm

Pleasanton does not have automatic representation on Lafco. Lafco is an Alameda County board and there are seats for only two city representatives, currently held by Janet Lockhart and Marshall Kamena, both of which have served as Mayor longer than Hosterman. Jennifer was an alternate member of the board and not "booted due to attendance" but so she could be replaced with San Leandro Mayor Tony Santos. Hmmm, maybe Kamena can then run the Tri-Valley?

Why doesn't anyone question Livermore's intent here, to try and take property (read: tax revenue) that would be annexed to the City of Pleasanton?

Lafco's letter, which were comments to the Staples Ranch DEIR, was recd by the city in July. By the way, this was after the allowed comment period and the city has since responded. These are public documents. The Weekly got it wrong here. Get the facts.

Posted by Annex Staples
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Sep 19, 2008 at 8:58 pm

Alameda County holds all the cards in this game.Its tax revenues vs. traffic.Put the extension through, but install several stoplights along the 2 mile odd to regulate the traffic during major communte time and let's bring in some tax revenues for this town.Political agendas aside, this is the right thing to do for Pleasanton.If we show our cooperation, perhaps County will get the Highway 84 widening completed.Before we do this though, can we get an agreement from County that if Stoneridge is put through to El Charro, that Highway 84 will be completed?

Posted by Up to speed
a resident of Amador Valley High School
on Sep 21, 2008 at 10:31 am

Jonas, maybe the most simple answer to your question is that the City of Pleasanton hasn't played very well with our regional partners in Dublin and Livermore in various ways. Also either one of them would jump at the chance for annexation to thier towns to win the tax revenue that Staples will bring.

Staples Ranch is an excellent example of good development. We need to put the Pleasanton drawbridge down and be the city of planned progress that had Stoneridge going through in the general plan a long time ago! It is nieghbors who have moved in long after that plan was adopted that now complain thier nieghborhoods will be ruined if Stoneridge is put through. Our over study and over scrutinizing city council will take 1% of our voting populations feedback and deem that appropriate to do "another study" because they want to make EVERYONE (yes every single person) happy. They will NEVER succeed at doing business as long as the city council majority maintains this stance.

Mayor Hosterman who has been a slow growth/no growth advocate in the past has learned from experience and now sees the value in good growth. In addition to re-electing Hosterman, we can begin heading in a more common sense direction by electing Jerry Pentin for City Council in the upcoming election.

If stop signs were a deterent to cut-through traffic, there wouldn't be any on Valley Ave. The last time I counted, there were 17 stop signs/signals on Valley in the 3.5 miles between Stanley and the I680.

Dublin is not interested in annexing Staples Ranch for any reason. On a separate note, my family moved to Livermore in 1956 and I have attended all K-12 in Livermore. I have friends in Pleasanton and Livermore, and always held the belief that we are one large community thus my reasons for reading the Pleasanton Weekly and Livermore Independent.